During the drilling and completion of oil and gas wells, various wellbore treating fluids are used for a number of purposes. For example, high viscosity gels are used to create fractures in oil and gas bearing formations to increase production. High viscosity and high density gels are also used to maintain positive hydrostatic pressure in the well while limiting flow of well fluids into earth formations during installation of completion equipment. High viscosity fluids are used to flow sand into wells during gravel packing operations. The high viscosity fluids are normally produced by mixing dry powder and/or granular materials and agents with water at the well site as they are needed for the particular treatment. Systems for metering and mixing the various materials are normally portable, e.g., skid- or truck-mounted, since they are needed for only short periods of time at a well site.
The powder or granular treating material is normally transported to a well site in a commercial or common carrier tank truck. Once the tank truck and mixing system are at the well site, the dry powder material (bulk material) must be transferred or conveyed from the tank truck into a supply tank for metering into a blender as needed. The bulk material is usually transferred from the tank truck pneumatically. More specifically, the bulk material is blown pneumatically from the tank truck into an on-location storage/delivery system (e.g., silo). The storage/delivery system may then deliver the bulk material onto a conveyor or into a hopper, which meters the bulk material through a chute into a blender tub.
Recent developments in bulk material handling operations involve the use of portable containers for transporting dry material about a well location. The containers can be brought in on trucks, unloaded, stored on location, and manipulated about the well site when the material is needed. The containers are generally easier to manipulate on location than a large supply tank trailer. The containers are eventually emptied by dumping the contents thereof onto a mechanical conveying system (e.g., conveyor belt, auger, bucket lift, etc.). The conveying system then moves the bulk material in a metered fashion to a desired destination at the well site.
Currently, most containers that are used for proppant handling with respect to hydraulic fracturing operations are steel. Steel is readily available and very familiar for many supply chain operators and has great characteristics with respect to strength and durability. However, steel is a very dense material and many of the operations or procedures used when handling the material can be very expensive. This includes the equipment used for manufacturing processes (brake, saw, welding machines, etc.) as well as the manual labor needed to complete the manufacturing processes. Many of these issues have been addressed with the design of a soft-sided container, which is the subject of a separate application filed by the assignee of the present application hereof That application was filed on Dec. 3, 2015 and has been assigned Serial No. PCT/US2015/063773.
The present disclosure presents another approach at addressing many of these same issues by employing a semi-rigid container the details of which are discussed in further detail herein.